In the Honduran news fable, one of the central images on the mainstream media storyboard has been the press conference Mel Zelaya conducted in his pajamas in Costa Rica.
Yet the Honduran military has now declared on the record for the first time – in a judicial proceeding – that the pajama gambit was a fake. They stated that Zelaya was sent out of Honduras fully dressed in normal clothing and his customary cowboy boots. That is the same account of events that the Honduran authorities were privately telling people from the first moment, but no military official had ever stated it on the record until now.
From the first moment news commentators and arrogant interviewers would nail their argument by saying “when a president is flown out of the country in his pajamas how can that not be a military coup”. No legal analysis was really needed because of the pajamas.
But what if Zelaya had been fully dressed and had changed his costume before heading to a press conference? What if Zelaya once in flight had decided that dressing down would be the key to a successful press event? Among other things it would mean that Zelaya has a brilliant sense of media and political theatre.
One curious detail has always been that Zelaya in exile had the official presidential credit card (and in five days ran up $80,000 in charges before it was canceled). Most of us keep credit cards in our wallets, not in our pajamas.
Machiavelli wrote that “luck” was of central importance in the affairs of state. But should he have also said that “clothes make the man?”
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
24 Comments
remember the obama administration supported this guy, not the free will of the people and constitution of honduras. our president sided with chavez and castro on this guy, if nobody can see the problem here we have a big problem headed our way. this guy violated the honduras constitution, and he was removed from office for this violation, and obama had a problem with that? what are we going to do whan obama gets caught violating ours?
He can take Nancy Pelosi's place – she is running her credit cards wild too. I really need some time to get over the second image. Yak!
Zelaya will be back, what outsiders dont understand of Honduras is that what we saw was the awakening of a society. When i lived in Venezuela as a teenager, i witnessed the Coup d'etat led by Hugo Chavez to overthrow a corrupt president, all he had to do to awaken the people was a short tv comment where he said on his way to Jail, "we failed for NOW" it struck a cord with every venezuelan, he has won a total of 10 votes and referendums, and what outsiders dont understand is that Venezuela was a mess before Chavez, it was like an Hacienda gone mad, and Chavez whether he would have been of the right or left, he was going to try to fight that madness. Honduras is an even clearer case of what is coming, it is so easy to read that anyone in Honduras knows it, and they either are joining in or are attacking with propaganda and censoring, anyone want to place a bet on this on, call me, because no matter what we write or what our western "Iraq has WMD" journalism has to say, the momentum for truth is beyond us.
I see the trolls are up already. Or should I say still up, daylight hasn't yet penetrated their cellar windows. Have a twinkie and go to bed now, troll.
The fact that he posed shirtless says a lot about his ego. He actually thinks her looks good with his beer gut, pipe cleaner arms and bird chest. Reminds me of how Sadam used to write romance novels in which he was the hero.
Looks like a "hardworking man of the people" to me.
Yes, a country that shuts down radio stations critical of the "President" can't be all bad right? Violent crackdowns of protestors by the Venezuelan Army can't be all bad, as long as Chavez talks about America and how we are the cause of all of their problems, not the Commie jagoff running the country into the ground.
It was "commie laundry day", ya that's it.
Even communist Chavez wannabe's need to send their $1200 French tailored suits to the cleaners.
After all, communist usurpers must be "dressed well" to take the "people to the cleaners".
That's Obama's man!!!
I was the one that tipped Breitbart on this issue. I thank them for following up on it.
The fact that Zelaya was not the hero of this crisis and that his failures as a leader and crimes against the constitution of Honduras were the cause of the crisis in the first place are important. Even more important, internationally, would be the role of Chavez in the whole debacle.
However, I do feel that Mr. Klugman missed the key issue in the Pajamas Issue, which was the role of the international press in propagating this lie. The fact that it was indeed false was known by most everyone in Honduras from the beginning. The Government of Honduras repeatedly told the press that it was not true. However, rather than investigating it and reporting the truth, the press went ahead and continued reporting the lie. In fact, they still are! Some current reports about the crisis in Honduras have finally started to drop the pajamas line when explaining the background, but not all. And, so far, to my knowledge, NONE of the press have reported and retracted their original error.
Furthermore, this report implies that Zelaya changed clothes on the plane. This is not true. He landed in San Jose, fully dressed. He changed his clothes sometime between then and his press conference that morning. Ask yourself, is it possible that President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica and one of the principle players in subsequent negotiations did not know this? Is it possible that ANY of the principle governmental players with access to decent intelligence services did not know this? I wouldn't think so. So, why did they go along with the charade?
And why did the press go along with this lie? Is it just because it made a more compelling story? Or, something else? Does anyone besides me think it is time to ask the reporters who covered this story in the beginning some pointed questions?
I lived in Venezuala, and a large part of my family still does, but I would not call it living. Even though there was mass corruption in Venezuala, only a fool or worst, a blind usefull fool would say Chavez has made things better for the people of Venezuala. chavez only makes things better for himself. And dont talk to me about western journalism, talk to Chavez about it, he should be an expert because he now ownes all the media. Any journalist that writes, speaks or films the truth about Chavez gets taken over by him and sent to jail. If Chavez is so good than why wont he let the media criticize his policy's, what is he afraid of? I think that tells it all, even more than his stolen referendums.
I still live in Venezuela, and it is only getting worse. We can only know the truth about what has happened here by inferring it from the official denials.
Phony pistolero FAIL. Ergonomically speaking, it would take him about a minute to clear leather with that pistol on his chest, and I really don't know how he'd get that submachine gun into action without some embarrassing hand switching and other fumbling. The damn fool really DOES have his arm stuck through the folded shoulder stock!!
But, given his demonstrated expertise with weapons, I would PAY to watch him pull that cocked 1911 out out of his underwear.
Thank you Andrew Breitbart. Big J is the best of the all the BIG sites to date. I know you are working hard and I hope you can keep all this going.
guess the failure of zelaya was another loss for obozo – so America wins another one
a loss for obama = a win for America
"Anti-Chavez protesters, many of them wearing white, filled the streets of Caracas, denouncing recent arrests of opposition members for alleged violence during protests and a new education law that critics fear could lead to indoctrination in schools."
"It's very concerning because education is Venezuela's future," said 23-year-old engineering student Carlos Delgado, who also complained of soaring inflation and rampant crime after more than a decade under Chavez.
"We have 11 years with the same faces, the same problems, and the truth is that we don't see any solutions," Delgado said."
All quoted from- guess where? Huffinpuff Post
Obama siding with dictators is not anything new (Iran). The media backing up dictators that's not new either (Soviet Union).
Getting the truth out about what really happened and not having to wait to read about it in a history book in a hundred years, now that's new and refreshing.
Way to go Hondurans!!!
Not everyone in America was duped by the press. From a freedom loving North American to the freedom loving people of South America I salute you, way to go standing up for your country.
In three years we'll have a President who believes in our Constitution as well as the Constitutions of free countries the world over. When that day comes the US owes Honduras a huge apology.
I just re-read this original article and picked up on the link to a previous article (first link titled "fable") regarding how the Honduras story was "story boarded". This was an excellent article. And fits very well with what I was trying to say above.
Thanks Mr. Klugman, and I apologize for thinking that you missed the real significance of the Pajamas Issue.
You have to hand it to the Latin American despots, they do have a certain flair.
Roy, they all knew this was a sham. But none of these "reporters" are there to report. They are there to propagate a leftist agenda. And if that means lie (which it almost always means), then they lie. There's moral compass involved in conveyance of truth.
The media isn't about truth. It's a propaganda machine. Which is why those outlets are going out of business.
You noticed that too? Aimed right at his package. What a yahoo.
Flair for what? The insane? He has that pistol in his pants aimed at his johnson.
First, the Obama administration went pretty easy on the change of government in Honduras. The US actually did a pretty good job of outmaneuvering Chavez on this one, to the point that Honduras may have marked the high water for Chavez. In case you weren't watching, the US administration said one thing and pursued a different long term policy (to the disgruntlement of less thoughtful individuals on the left). They seem to have done a pretty good job of analyzing the risks and threading through the minefields. Second, I have a hard time finding the "elites" running Honduras, a country with a GDP smaller than Microsoft's annual revenues. The elites are north of the Mexican border. Much of the Honduran middle class were not born rich but have worked hard to study and get as far as they've gotten, and Zelaya wasn't offering anything to him. The reason Chavez is failing, and why Zelaya would have torn apart and beggared Honduras is because they both disenfranchise productive sectors of the economy as elitists and call this expanding opportunities for the poor, while handing Chavez a defeat. Retaining the productive sectors while reconstituting society to enfranchise the disenfranchised takes great understanding of how the societies work, as well as political subtlety, which both of them lack. I know that of Zelaya because I've had a window at times on some of his cabinet meetings, and my impression is the he in the caudillo mode of governing-ignorant of how government functions, politically incompetent, and, did I mention corruption? (E.g. The second city, San Pedro Sula, was bankrupted by a payroll of "ghost employees""–friends and family of the Zelaya administration given high-paid jobs with no work included, to the point that the city could no longer pay people performing municipal services. Top members of his administration were also prone to making withdrawals from the national bank outside fiduciary or accounting channels. And ask about the $600,000 dollars in expenses he ran up on government credit cards after he left the country–at the expense of the Honduran citizen–not exactly someone who cares for the Honduran worker footing the bills.) And Chavez, a military officer that tried first to take over the country by military coup and afterwards by electoral coup, no particular interest in nurturing democratic process there.
So, you are saying that Obama's administration secretly always knew the truth and supported what Honduras did. But, they had to publicly condemn, berated and belittle them in order to help them, because… What??!!
Give me a break! Obama and Hillary screwed the pooch on Honduras and it took them well over a month to realize it. By then, they couldn't do an about face without looking bad, hence all of the fancy dancing.